


Spirit and Bone

by agdhani



Series: Spirit and Bone [1]
Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agdhani/pseuds/agdhani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not the first stranger to cross into John's life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirit and Bone

**Author's Note:**

> This might be part of a series...I've been toying with this idea for awhile, so we'll see how it goes.

“But it wasn’t my fault!”

A lot of things were John’s fault. He drank too much, smoked too much, ate less than healthy meals as often as he could. He didn’t hold down a regular nine to five job, and his choice of career paths didn’t exactly bring in paychecks…not often enough at least. Bills piled up and he often didn’t have enough to cover them, and that was his fault too.

And Newcastle had sure as hell been his fault.

Cigarettes and whiskey. Trench coat and arrogance. Those things were his fault, if one chose to label them as fault.

But was it his fault that he couldn’t hold down any sort of personal relationship, other than his friendship with Chas, if his life depended on it? There was Zed, yes…but he didn’t even know what that was. A working partnership. That’s what it had to be.

Anyone else who got too close to John Constantine died…starting with his mother and ending most recently with the loss of Gary Lester. He warned them all away; he tried his best to push people away for just that reason. To keep them from getting hurt. There was enough blood, physical and spiritual, on his hands as it was.

He didn’t want any more.

And he sure as hell did not want to run the risk of letting the man seated at the bar next to him being the next victim. It wasn’t his fault they became victims.

It was merely the consequence of the only skill set he had to offer the world.

The red-head toyed with the glass of whiskey, watching the gold liquid swirl, pushing down the angry words that first came into his mouth. No, it wasn’t John’s fault. As much as he wanted it to be, John had warned him of the risks of getting too close, the risks of taking a chance on John Constantine. He couldn’t say they were close; they’d only just met…another evening, another bar, where the tentative promise of some intangible future had been bandied about over scotch and cigarette smoke. He’d known then, with the exchange of phone numbers, that John was never going to call him…no matter what his drunken words had insinuated.

If there was any fault here, it was his for daring to hope. For believing what the spirits had told him.

The spirits weren’t always truthful, after all. The dead could lie just as surely as the living.

But those voices had brought him here tonight, to once more cross paths with the self-proclaimed Master of the Dark Arts.

“I’m not giving up on this,” he said, sliding a business card of his own across the bar directly in front of John, his arm pushing beneath the other man’s as he did so, the brushing of their wrists giving him a jolt.

From the scowl on John’s face, he wagered the exorcist had felt it as well.

“You need me. In time, you’ll see that too. Don’t wait too long…don’t wait for the window to close.”

“Too long for what?” John watched the red-head drain his glass and get up from the table. “What window?”

“Think about it, Constantine…you’ll call me when you’re ready.”

The crowd swallowed him without further words. Hand over the card upon the bar, John finished his own drink and shoved the slip into the pocket of his coat. Without looking at it, he couldn’t even remember the fellow’s name.

He was convinced he’d be better off not remembering…no matter how deeply his curiosity burned.


End file.
